Genealogy Research Databases at the Lane Memorial Library

American Ancestors  (In Library Use Only)
Online access to hundreds of millions of records from the New England Historic Genealogical Society of Boston.
Watch this 10-minute video tutorial to learn about the resources that are available here.

Ancestry Library Edition (In Library Use Only)
Ancestry Library Edition is o
ne of the most important genealogical collections available today. It has unparalleled coverage of the United States and the United Kingdom, including census, vital, church, court, military, and immigration records, as well as directories and record collections from Canada, Europe, Australia and other areas of the world. This collection includes thousands of databases and billions of indexed names. This database is similar to what individuals get with an ancestry.com subscription, but there are some differences.
Follow this link for help in searching, or watch this video.

Here's a useful article from another library on the differences between Ancestry Library Edition and HeritageQuest Online.

HeritageQuest Online
Heritage Quest Online is a growing collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture. At present there are five main sections. The first and most significant includes scanned images of U.S. census records from 1790 to 1940, with indexes to many of those years. This collection compliments that of Ancestry Library Edition, mentioned above. The second part consists of a comprehensive collection of over 28,000 family genealogies and local histories, as well as primary source materials, genealogical and local history serials, city and business directories, collective biographies, vital records and military records from all over the country. Every word in each book has been indexed and is keyword-searchable. The third section contains PERSI. The PERiodical Source Index is a comprehensive subject index covering thousands of genealogy and local history periodicals written in English and French (Canada) since 1800. PERSI provides the researcher the ability to search on surnames, locations, and methodologies as well as the ability to browse the journals by title and keyword. There are more than 2 million article citations available, with updates occurring annually. PERSI is produced in cooperation with the Allen County (Indiana) Public Library Foundation. Fourth are the Revolutionary War Era Pension & Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, and fifth is the Freedman's Bank, which was created after the Civil War to serve freed slaves. Finally it offers the "U.S. Serial Set," where you can search for information about people and places in the Memorials, Petitions and Private Relief Actions of the U.S. Congress.

Hampton Marriage Records
Marriage records compiled from the Hampton Town Reports between 1888 and 2005, searchable by the name of the bride, the groom, their parents, and by place names.

Other Significant Genealogy-Related Databases and Websites

Chronicling America
Historic American Newspapers, 1836-1922, digitized by the Library of Congress. Here is a good description of how to use this newspaper database.

FamilySearch
Created by the LDS (Mormon) Church, this database includes billions of names across hundreds of collections—including birth, marriage, death, probate, land, military, and more, from countries all over the world. Of particular interest to genealogists interested in local families are digitized copies of original vital records from New Hampshire and Massachusetts from early times into the early 20th century.

Free Public Records Search Sites
Links to websites in every state for free access to birth, marriage and death records, as well as many other types of public records.

Cyndi's List
A comprehensive, categorized & cross-referenced list of hundreds of thousands of links that point you to genealogical research sites online.